"Serene Zelda to military ship on our starboard side. Can you help us confirm our position?"

It was a pitch black morning after two days of hard sailing. My crewmates and I should have been within spitting distance of Beaufort, NC. Only we weren't. We were lost.

"This is a British warship," came a welcomed radio reply. "What indication of position do you have?"

"We believe we are at 34°–49'–36”N and 75°–57'–22"W," I explained over the VHF, "but we have a disagreement between our instruments and we're confused."

"Your GPS is correct," announced our new friends. "You are at 35°–12'–11"N and 74°–46'–08"W..."

It was indeed bad news. Instead of being 12 miles off the coast, just south of Cape Hatteras, we were 45 miles out to Sea. Something had gone very wrong. The question was, what?

A REPEAT PERFORMANCEBrian MatthewsAaron Clark clips in as he assumes the helm for a late night watch on Serene Zelda.

Every year in May some of my colleagues from North Carolina State University join me for a destination cruise complete with overnight passages and at least one 300-mile leg.

Serene Zelda, my 1988 Hunter Legend 37, is based in Irvington, Va., 12 miles up the Rappahannock River from the Chesapeake Bay, a four-hour drive from Raleigh.

These annual outings are our only opportunity to do more than short day sails and each has had some unique adventures. The week between the end of the spring term and beginning of summer is our only real free time each year. So we prepare well and generally sail regardless of the conditions – we've been through storms and calms, heat and cold, squalls and even hail. (For a story on the hailstorm, see link.)

We practice meticulous safety practices and provision the boat for all kinds of conditions and extended time away from port. In doing so we try to at least pretend that we are actually fulfilling our collective, lifelong dreams of high seas voyaging, even though we are rarely more than 100 miles from port.

The longest trip was a non–stop, 1999 circumnavigation of the DelMarVa Peninsula. Other years we have visited towns in the extreme lower or upper ends of the Bay: Hampton, Norfolk, Baltimore and Annapolis.

Two of the trips were aborted attempts to go south to Beaufort, NC, via the ocean route.

One of those trips was in 2000 when we set out on a stormy afternoon and sailed through the night. We made good progress. Using the prevailing winds, we easily made the 70 miles from homeport to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and crossed the Bay Bridge tunnel without incident. That's when the storms stuck.

We persisted, but about eight miles out at sea and south of the Bay, the conditions became precarious and we decided to abandon the trip. We barely avoided being run-down by an aircraft carrier in the fog as we limped back into Norfolk by the next morning. It was a good decision to abort the trip as the crew of another larger boat had to be rescued by helicopter just south of where we decided to turn back.

DEAD WRONGAaron ClarkThe author at the helm during his his 4 a.m. watch, as Bob Wenig shivers in the cold.

Our next attempt for Beaufort was in 2004. That year's crew included Aaron Clark, Brian Matthews, Bob Wenig, and Steven Miller. As in 2000, we had easily made the trip down the bay and out into the ocean the first night.

Though there were some rain spells, we did not encounter serious storms, just heavy winds and rough conditions that made us work hard. The second day and night were a beautiful broad reach straight down the coast, about 12 miles offshore.

The wind was hard from the west and Serene Zelda was really in her element, ticking off 7-8.5 knots hour after hour. When I went off watch to sleep at midnight, everything looked great as we had nearly cleared the famed Cape Hatteras that everyone reports as so perilous. My instructions to the crew were simple: "Hold course until we are a little further south and then turn more westerly to cut back up into the south side of North Carolina – we should be in Beaufort by midday tomorrow."

They woke me for my next watch at 4 a.m. As I got dressed I groggily asked how we were doing. The reply was something akin to, "We're not really sure! The GPS must be broken." I began my investigation and at first I too was confused.Aaron ClarkBob Wenig confirms our dead reckoned location with the GPS early in the evening while Steve Miller registers his enjoyment with a smile.

The knotmeter still showed that we were making great forward progress of 7–8 knots and the compass clearly indicated that we were aimed in the south–south-westerly direction, our desired heading. The careful dead–reckoning marks on the chart showed that our expected position should be right where we hoped to be by this time – well inside the crook of land below Cape Hatteras and headed toward our destination.

But the GPS, what I like to call a "newfangled thingy," said we were still exactly opposite Cape Hatteras and more than 45 miles out into the Atlantic ocean. That simply could not be right.

I first assumed that the GPS was right and something was wrong with our compass. Maybe the metal coffee mug a crew member had placed near it was causing error. We moved that and saw no change. We moved the hand-held VHF — no change. We compared headings with two portable compasses – they all agreed. It was too dark to see anything at all and there was no other traffic visible, so we continued on our course assuming that the GPS was either faulty or signals were being jammed for some military purpose. Everyone has heard those rumors that the military does that now and again to foil would-be terrorists. But is that really true?

About two hours later we saw a big grey vessel a good distance off and placed a call in search of some navigational help.

Their answer clarified that the GPS was correct. Now we faced some decisions. We tried to turn and sail more directly for the coast, but the strong wind against us made that very slow and difficult. We motored for a couple of hours directly towards the coast and made progress, but fuel was clearly too low to make it all the way in. We were actually in no real danger because there was plenty of food and water, nobody had any real medical emergency beyond the usual cases of seasickness, and the boat could sail well – but not quickly – in the direction we wished to go.

If we had a couple of weeks to "play" we could have simply kept sailing slowly until conditions were more favorable. My vote was to just keep sailing, though slowly, toward our destination. I was certain we could avoid foundering on the coast of Portugal. But some of my crewmembers had important appointments to keep ashore and they needed to return more quickly to some port where they could get a ride back home. Sailing was too slow and fuel was too low.

With everyone too exhausted to continue the hard sailing, and with the urgency of the appointments, we decided to call for help.

A COSTLY CALL

The Coast Guard put us in touch with a towing company and we requested assistance. They advised against towing in the heavy conditions but said they would gladly deliver plenty of fuel so we could motor in safely. The engine was working well, so we accepted their advice and the fuel.

I know that we are in a fuel shortage period now, but the $3 I pay for gasoline today seems very cheap compared to the $1,200 that the 30 gallons of diesel delivered to our location that day totaled. We motored back into Norfolk in time for everyone to meet their obligations. Tired, wet, somewhat dispirited, but safe, we slept like logs in port, ate a nice meal and then a few caught buses home while the remainder sailed back to Irvington the next day.

So, what had happened and how did we get so far off track?

The seeming mystery was easily resolved when we looked at it with rested eyes and a logical approach. None of the instruments were telling lies, they were all perfectly correct. But there was one vector that we had failed to consider in our calculations: current.

It was our plan to stay about 12 miles offshore for most of the trip and only go a little further out at Hatteras to insure a clean and safe clearance. With the wind strong from the west, the boat was always heeling a good bit to port on our south–easterly passage. When we actually began to round the cape and turn a bit toward shore it placed us first in a broad reach and then in a bit of a pinch. While I slept we were ever so slightly pushed further out to sea in the dark while still making some forward progress. But then we unknowingly actually entered the strong Gulf Stream current. The compass still pointed in the right direction and the knotmeter told us that water was passing its sensor at 7–8 knots, but it could not tell us that this was because of the 6–plus knots of current against us.

In the dark nobody noticed the dramatic color change of the water or the change in the shape of waves that would have both alerted us that we were in the Gulf Stream. The GPS had it right because we were now rapidly being pushed out to sea by the strong wind as the boat slid sideways easily with so little keel in the water at this high angle of heel.

Less-fatigued minds and earlier investigation the first time that the GPS did not agree with our dead–reckoned plot may have solved the problem before we were so far out, but my crew was kind enough to let me sleep while each half hour's plot revealed more discrepancy.

I did need the sleep as it had been a hard few days of heavy sailing, but $1,200 was a steep cost for a little shuteye. The moral: When navigational instruments disagree, find out why quickly or pay the price – literally.

Is another Beaufort trip in our future? Maybe this year. You know what they say. Three's the charm.

Jim Haynie is a Professor and Coordinator of the Technology Education Program at North Carolina State University. He sails Serene Zelda, a 1988 Hunter Legend 37, out of Irvington,VA.